The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price.
"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." Leonardo da Vinci - "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing." Edmund Burke

August 16, 2013

Around
four in 10 university employees feel unable to make their voices heard
within their institutions, according to preliminary findings from the
first Times Higher Education Best University Workplace Survey.
Analysis
of the first 2,300 responses to the survey, which is still open to all
university employees, reveals that 37 per cent disagree with the
statement: “I can make my voice heard within my university.”

The figure rises to 56 per cent when including those who neither agree nor disagree.

“There
is de facto no meaningful management at an everyday level,” says one
senior lecturer at a university in the South West of England.
“Shop-floor problems such as too few teaching staff are usually ignored
by managers and dealt with by staff ad hoc.

“There is almost no
meaningful forward planning beyond thinking about the needs of [the
research excellence framework], or branding issues such as the National
Student Survey.”

A respondent from another institution, who works
as an IT technician, sums up the concerns of many respondents, saying:
“Communication between staff and senior management tends to be a
bottleneck in both directions. Senior management makes all the right
noises – but never checks that it is happening in practice.”

However,
although many employees appear to feel overlooked by their
institution’s hierarchy, the vast majority enjoy working with their
peers. Just 6 per cent say they do not, with some 47 per cent “strongly
agreeing” when asked if they enjoy working with their immediate
colleagues.

“My department is particularly good at supporting
early career academics. I have worked at other institutions where levels
of exploitation are appalling but [my department] is especially
sensitive to the needs of [such] staff and proactive in ensuring they
get the support and career development they need,” says one academic at a
Russell Group university.

A professor at a 1994 Group institution
adds: “My line manager is an excellent, responsive, can-do sort of
person who really cares about his academic colleagues. My department has
really good morale.”

The Best University Workplace Survey is open to all UK higher education staff. John Gill, THE’s
editor, said: “The larger the number of people that participate in the
survey, the more detailed will be the picture that we piece together
about working life in our universities.

“Our intention in this
first year of the survey is simply to get an idea of the areas in which
universities are performing well as employers, and those where they need
to do more.”

League table success at the University of Exeter may have been gained
at the expense of staff, who claim to have experienced “undue stress”,
“bullying”, sexism and a “loss of voice”, according to an internal
report.

A group convened at the request of management and led by
Nicky Britten, professor of applied healthcare research at the
institution, has identified a “top-down management” culture as a source
of problems at Exeter.

Based on 288 responses from the
university’s 3,900 staff, the report says that many people found the
senior management team remote, with major decisions being “made by a
small group of people behind closed doors without consultation”.

“The
tone of communication (described as ‘hectoring’) might have been
appropriate for managing underperformance ten years ago, but is
inappropriate now,” reads the report, which was presented to the
university’s council, alongside the senior management’s response, on 21
February.

Many staff felt their opinions were ignored, “with no acknowledgment or feedback”, it adds. The
group also documents “some alarming reports of bullying, manipulative
and unpleasant behaviour” by particular senior managers and a feeling
among some that the university “is a self-perpetuating male-dominated
culture” with policies such as maternity leave not taken seriously.

“There
are reports of men making casual sexist remarks…referring to women as
‘girls’, promoting men over women (despite the women having equal or
better CVs),” it adds.

The investigation was initiated after the
university’s wider staff survey of 2012, which found that 36 per cent
reported feeling unduly stressed, compared with a benchmark figure at
universities conducting the same survey of 28 per cent.

The survey
also found that only 60 per cent said they felt able to voice opinions,
compared with a sector benchmark of 76 per cent.

Exeter vice-chancellor Sir Steve Smith told Times Higher Education that senior management would respond to the concerns identified by the group, and in many cases had already made changes.

Expanding
student numbers and raising Exeter from an average ranking position of
34th in the UK during the 1990s to the top 10 today had meant being
“very centralist”, he said. However, efforts were now being made to try
to reverse this.

Exeter had already reinstated academic heads of
discipline to decision- making positions on the university’s college
executives and was on a recruitment drive that would reduce workloads,
he said.

“I could have written to staff saying ‘we’ve got the
[2012] survey results and we did better [than] or the same [as the
benchmark] in 17 out of 25 [areas]’, but the truth is I know that there
are tensions…We’re trying to be as open as possible,” Sir Steve said.
The problem would now be working out how widespread the concerns were
and whether or not they were historical, he added.

However,
co-president of the Exeter branch of the University and College Union,
Jo Melling, said the union felt that senior management’s response did
“not meet the needs outlined” by the group.

“In particular, we are
concerned that the vice-chancellor’s executive group has not recognised
the issue about voice and governance that the group clearly flagged
up,” he said, pointing to recommendations that the university commission
an independent review of distribution of power within the institution.

Management has said that the university’s governance will be assessed in 2014 as part of its regular five-yearly reviews.

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Useful and informative Links

• Bad Apple Bullies - If you work as a teacher in Queensland, a Bad Apple Bully principal can destroy your health and your career with malicious gossip and secret sticky-notes.

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• Bully Online - Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully. Bully OnLine is the world's leading web site on workplace bullying and related issues which validates the experience of workplace bullying and provides confirmation, reassurance and re-empowerment.

• Suppression of dissent - The general field of "suppression of dissent" includes whistleblowing, free speech, systems of social control and related topics. The purpose of the site is to foster examination of these issues and action against suppression. It is founded on the assumption that openness and dialogue should be fostered to challenge unaccountable power.

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• The Workplace Bullying Institute is the sole United States organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying through public education, help for individuals, employer solutions and legislative advocacy.